Fediverse or Decentralization? Discussing Privacy and Freedom

Fediverse, including Mastodon and https://blueskyweb.xyz/, has emerged as a popular alternative to Twitter. Personally, I found Mastodon was like the early days of Twitter, without half as much toxicity.

However, one common criticism of the Fediverse, when compared to peer-to-peer networks like Nostr, Scuttlebutt, and WireMin, is that it may eventually "recentralize," similar to how client/server models tend to do. (We already see signs of that with mastodon.social, but we’re still very far from it to be a center.)

The Fediverse is not exactly decentralized. While it is distributed across multiple servers, these servers still centralize the users and data.

To truly achieve decentralization, each user must retain their own data, and no external authority should have the ability to interfere with it, as seen in Nostr, Scuttlebutt, and WireMin.

In terms of privacy and freedom, there’s no doubt that true decentralization surpasses the Fediverse. However, going fully decentralized does not necessarily result in the best user experience. Content moderation, for example, would be pretty difficult.

I would say, it's a tradeoff. Currently, the Fediverse seems to be the better option. However, what will peer-to-peer networks look like in five years? Their true value may only emerge when they achieve significant growth in the future.